feeling
made me go to Africa.
i heard
Africa
calling my name:

i
was not dreaming.
i was in
Africa.
the real culture
   shock
would come upon my return.
this land of my birth
remains unreal,
familiar in its strangeness,
even now,
it appears stranger still.

Africa
calling my name
sounds push-
pushing me
to sink my roots
in native soil,
to seek
nourishment to heal
my wounded
soul.

Africa.

land
to call home
had been something imagined,
something surreal,
something dreamed during
quiet hours,
shrouded in mists
wrapped
winding-
sheet tight round
battered racial
memory.

i
was in
Africa.
that first night my
dreams disturbed.
feeling
   split
the dream-body against its Self,
wrenched part of me
back across the Atlantic
ocean of my mind,
slicing sleep
awake,
startled into tropic night.

Africa.

it
arrested me.
freed me
to the core.
i knew
faces.
they were the same faces,
only more.
faces
moved me to sea-
   search
the Afreeka
water-deep inside
a kidnapped peoples lore.
i
saw
Carolina
Georgia Alabama
Mississippi Louisiana
Harlem Hough Liberty City South Phillie
Atlanta Chocolate City/DC
made plain.
the scenes sounds smells
rhythm rhyme
bright colors motion
time was the
same.

i
searched
for black Self,
searched
for the Africa
i encountered seated at Chief Sowande's
feet,
the Africa revealed by
Cheikh Anta,
the Africa i experienced in the work
of Dadie Diop Brutus,
of Achebe Aidoo Emecheta Armah,
the Africa singing
in Makeba Fela
N'Dour.

i
was
in Africa--
Cheikh Anta Diop,
standing,
beaming black light.
our light house
guiding lost/found
souls home
to safe shores ...